The Universe is in a Blue Police Box
by Carlier36
Summary: The Doctor stops off for a cup of tea with an old friend but lands in 1954 rather than 1945 and finds himself a big sister instead.


**The Universe is in a Blue Police Box**

_Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…_ Snow as fine as powdered sugar puffed up in protest as a slightly battered blue police box appeared, seemingly out of thin air. The door creaked open and a man bounded out into the chill of a January afternoon, straightening his bow tie as he peered around the lane. Snow blanketed the wooden fence posts, the barren trees and nearly obscured the lone sedan parked in the driveway of a grand old house rising up from the countryside.

The man smiled knowingly, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he trudged down the middle of the abandoned road and up to the large wooden door at the front of the house (manor, really, he thought to himself. It was more than just a house, it was a _manor_. Maybe an _estate_.) Giving the door a nice, sharp knock, he waited a bit impatiently, bouncing from foot to foot and leaning in to examine the rather interesting mailbox hung by the door.

So it was that he was lost in his thoughts, wondering why mail had to be put in a box and why not a mail sphere? when the door popped open or else he would have greeted the pretty brunette there with deep confusion as she was most certainly not who he expected. "Oh you must be Fred! Please, come in, come in," she exclaimed, stepping aside with a bright smile.

Turning slowly towards her, brow knit, his eyes narrowed. "No… can't say I am. I knew a Fred once though, lovely fellow."

"Oh. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm expecting a Fred any minute." She laughed, waving a hand dismissively. "Anyway, come on in. How can I help you?"

He walked inside slowly, the confusion dawning on his face. "I… was looking for the Professor…? He hasn't moved, has he? He always said he wouldn't leave this place if the Germans came for him _personally_."

Her smile dimmed and a soft sort of sadness filled her eyes. "Oh… I'm so sorry. Professor Kirke passed away a few years ago," the woman murmured, clasping her hands together.

"Ohhh, no… Well that's a shame, isn't it? I missed the old chap… I just popped in for some tea…" His shoulders slumped and he turned away from her, hands in his pockets, before meeting her eyes again abruptly. "What year is it?"

She stammered slightly, raising an eyebrow. "1954. Have you… Where… How did you know the Professor?"

"How did _you_ know the Professor?"

Folding her arms over her chest, she pursed her lips. "He left everything he owned to me."

The man stared at her for a long moment before blinking, a blush spreading across his cheeks. "Oh. _Oh_."

"Oh, no!" Covering her face, she shook her head furiously. "No, no, he left everything to my family and I'm all that's _left _of my family. Not like… _that_. Look, I'm Susan." She extended her hand, her smile returning if a bit reluctantly. "Any friend of the Professor's is a friend of mine. It's getting late; why don't you stay? The room's on me."

"Are… you a hotel now?" he inquired, shaking her hand.

"Bed and breakfast," Susan smiled. "The house was badly damaged at the end of the war but after the Professor died I had it fixed up. House like this shouldn't sit empty. It's like a living thing, you know. Sometimes I think she misses him as much as I do."

He seemed to soften at that, his stiff posture relaxing. "I do know," he admitted.

Although he didn't much need to sleep, he had found humans, no matter their century, thought it odd when he refused a bed so he took the offered room graciously. Susan put the tea on while he inspected his room, clinking the porcelain figurines on the nightstand and plumping the pillows unnecessarily. Leaving a thorough examination for the middle of the night when he would be expected to be confined to the room (though he probably wouldn't stay that way for long; he rarely did), he came down for tea when called.

He wandered around the perimeter of the parlor, hands stuffed in his pockets while Susan made idle small talk as she poured cups for him and the recently arrived Fred, a salesman passing through for a night on his way to Ipswich. The parlor would have made for a much more interesting midnight examination than his bedroom, he decided silently, eyeing the grandfather clock in the corner as it ticked and tocked and ticked again. Tipping his head back rather extremely, he looked between Susan and the painting hung high on the wall of a family of two brothers and two sisters, each with the same misplaced regality he had seen in her eyes. In fact, the brunette on the left, she might even _be _Susan, a few years and a few heartaches ago. "Left everything to you, hmm?"

Fred and Susan glanced up at him with cups of tea halfway to their lips, eyebrows arched in surprise at his sudden, seemingly irrelevant comment. She recovered first, having had at least a smidge of context, and gingerly set her cup down. "Yes, he was a very dear family friend. We came to stay with him during the war and… he understood us. Of course, he meant it all to be divided amongst myself and my brothers and sister. I imagine he thought we'd outlive him by decades. But, then, we're older than we look."

Susan smoothed the tablecloth beneath her hands, meeting his eyes for a brief, pointed moment before her gaze darted away to the splendidly carved crown atop the grandfather clock. She tucked a hand beneath her chin, elbow resting elegantly on the back of her chair as a small, intriguingly adventurous smile touched her lips. "More tea?"

Tea had led to a late afternoon stroll, the crisp chill of early winter biting at their cheeks and snowballs prickling their fingers with cold. Supper had warmed them to their toes with hearty stew and Susan had proven herself quite a good cook (he suspected she had spent some time in France or perhaps Turkey. Her use of spices had a distinctly Near-Eastern quality.) Fred excused himself to his room sometime around 8:30 and soon they were alone with their thoughts by the fire.

"You know, you never told me your name," she commented casually, tucking a blanket over her lap.

"You know, you invited me into your home without ever asking for it," he replied, inspecting a piece of candy from a bowl on the side table.

Susan chuckled, a kind, tinkling sound, snatching a piece of candy for herself. "Touché."

"Tell me, did the Professor leave you _everything? _The books, the statues, the house, the grounds…"

"And a legacy of madcap adventures in far-off lands? Oh yes, every bit."

The man grinned, crunching on his candy. "How 'bout a fresh, new adventure, you and me, off and about with the universe at our feet?"

"What about Fred?" Susan asked, as though strange men in bow ties asked her to run away with them all the time.

"I can bring you back to just a few moments after you've left! He'll never even know you were gone! Well, he might have to show himself out. But it will be close, for sure!"

Susan smiled brightly, a twinkle in her eye that he suspected hadn't been seen in a long while. And, yet, she was reluctant. "I don't know. I think… my time for adventures has passed."

"Nonsense! What would the Professor say? _He _was never too old for adventures."

"We all grow up," she countered, a bitter tinge to her words. "We all get too old at some point."

"Poppycock!" He paused, looking as though struck with an epiphany. "What a fantastic word that is! _Poppycock. _I'm 1102 and I'm not too old for adventures. Well, somewhere about 1102, anyway. Maybe 1109."

But she insisted and he sulked off to bed (or to explore his wing of the house, anyhow.) He really thought she'd change her mind. Few people had ever refused his offer of the universe.

Next morning as he slid down the banister he realized she wasn't one of the few. Two suitcases and a hatbox were propped by the door and she was waiting for him with the raised eyebrows of a big sister (never had one of those, could be interesting), her hands folded in a muff and a hat perched jauntily on her head. "The universe is waiting and you're dawdling around at 10 in the morning?"

He smirked, folding his arms, chest a bit puffed with pride. "Knew you'd change your mind. Besides, nothing interesting ever happens before 10 in the morning."

"Get my bags, would you? Fred's gone and the house is closed up. I don't buy your 'few moments' bit for a second." Susan pulled the door open with a wave of her hand in the general direction of her suitcases. "Did you _sleep _in that bowtie?"

He harrumphed, straightening said bowtie as he tried to figure out how to carry both cases and balance the hatbox under his chin. "It's _cool_."

Susan paused, glancing back at him over her shoulder with a bemused smile. "Makes you look like a banker."

"I'm no _banker!_" The door slammed behind him and her key turned definitively in the lock. "I'm the Doctor."

"You're a doctor?"

"No, I'm _the _Doctor."

"Whatever you say." She gave the house one last look before setting off in the direction of the not-terribly-out-of-place blue police box (it _was _the '50s, after all.) "I'm guessing the universe's in there?"

"How'd you know?" he called out after her in surprise, (mostly that she had _ruined _the surprise) although the she wasn't strictly correct and in fact it wasn't like that at all.

"I once stepped into a wardrobe and found a forest. Just figures that the universe would be in a police box!"

Just figures.


End file.
